Finance Transformation

Finance Transformation

FINANCE TRANSFORMATION

A strong financial foundation is the bedrock of your business. That’s why it’s essential to have transparent and insightful financial reporting that aligns with your company’s needs.

Understanding your performance gives you a competitive advantage when it comes to making informed, mission-critical decisions. We’ll help you establish the infrastructure you need to build, shape and operate your business.

Our client grew from $500K to $125MM+ in just four years. Our team members were some of the first people brought into the organization and worked for 3 years (currently a client) directly with the founders to buildout finance and related process.

Problem

Prior to our engagement, one of the co-founders was running all of the company finances. Invoices and payables were sent whenever there was leftover time in the day and the company didn’t leverage financial data to make strategic decisions.

COGS tracking and reporting was very difficult to calculate for a variety of factors (system constraints, account set ups, complex sales channels, etc.).

AGA’s Approach & Results

AGA’s tasks included the following:

Set up of financial infrastructure for entity and worked directly with CEO to ensure structuring of operations would facilitate insights into COGs and other key reporting metrics.

Created baseline financial reporting tools and processes. Collaborated with all departments of the organization to create actionable dashboards that combined financial and operational data.

Built automated Excel processes focused on allowing data from disparate systems to be consolidated in a dashboard format.

Worked with executive leadership to recruit, onboard, and transition finance responsibilities to internal resources

Worked with leadership team on exit planning

Trained and developed new resources in finance, as well as general staff through onboarding training

A subscription as a service company specializing in marketing for commercial real estate brokerages and agents nationwide. The company recently received an $8 million dollar VC capital infusion.

Problem

After receiving venture capital funding, the Board of Directors took issue with the company’s lack of financial personnel and infrastructure; requesting that the company find a Chief Financial Officer or VP of Finance. Given the immediate need of an experienced finance team, the company decided to engage AGA, which would satisfy the Board’s request while also building the financial infrastructure for the future finance department. AGA was tasked with creating a board approved operating budget, monitoring and analyzing SaaS KPI’s and deploying sophisticated reporting & modeling solutions for both the Board & C-Suite.

For almost 20 years, this company has been the leading provider of residential real estate photography in the US and an innovator within the industry introducing new technology and editing techniques.

Problem

The company was reliant on an accounting department run entirely by one person with the support of an A/R clerk. This person provided only bare minimum reporting on often extremely dlayed time schedules. In addition the processes in place were extremely manual, outdated, and lacked a single page of documentation. AGA was brought in to help with transition of this person (who suddenly retired a week early) while simultaneously revamping the core processes, infrastructure and deploying sophisticated reporting and modeling solutions.

AGA’s Approach & Results

AGA’s tasks included the following:

Reviewed all processes, workflow, roles & responsibilities as it relates to daily and monthly tasks, planned and implemented new processes to optimize performance

Our client recently bought out a business partner due to lack of a shared vision. The partner previously handled the financial and operational aspects of the business, though had minimal experience doing so. Our client enlisted the help of AGA to revamp and improve the existing infrastructure, as well as build advanced analytics and reporting dashboards in order to make informed decisions.

Problem

The company was struggling with plateauing sales, and declining profitability but had no visibility into the drivers of either. Prior to our engagement, there was no analysis or reporting performed, as the team did not have the capacity to build it. Additionally, the company had no methodoology for tracking inventory, and therefore no insight into their margins.

AGA’s Approach & Results

AGA’s Tasks included the following:

Reviewed, validated and documented processes in a detailed handbook, allowing for easy traceability and onboarding of team members.

Worked alongside internal team to identify major pain points of the business (inventory tracking, lack of processes and information to make strategic decisions) then developed and executed plans to implement procedures and systems to collect and track vital information

Our client experienced significant growth over the last few years, and were fortunate enough to be able to operate strictly based on the balance of their bank account. The “run through walls” strategy worked with their initial stage of rapid growth, but as growth started leveling out our client required a more sophisticated approach to data and analytics, which ultimately started through building their finance function.

Problem

As our client grew so quickly and didn’t require it, the finance team was never developed. Financial reporting was done once a year for tax purposes only, and had not been used for nearly two years. Additionally, any analysis currently being performed was highly labor intensive as processes were inefficient.

AGA’s Approach & Results

AGA’s tasks included the following:

Performed an exhaustive cleanup of the previous year’s financial reporting to ensure a large foundation of data to draw from

Developed consistent, recurring processes used to generate financial reports on a regular basis

Constructed automated Excel analyses that in some cases reduced man-hours from one day per month to one hour per month, and produced reliable conclusions

Developed strategies for pricing of products, reducing freight costs, improving commission structures, and extending credit to customers through extensive analysis

Developed an automated analysis used to purchase large amounts of inventory on a regular basis, and maintain optimal levels

Trained internal team members to take ownership and operate the automated analyses